For the class of 400 that graduated that June day, the sentiment has been taken to heart. The cliché seems to show that high school classmates drift apart over the years and then get together for the occasional reunion fraught with awkwardness and competition. Not for this class, for which throwing reunions has become an art. Even as they near 60, they still get together every five years for a party that puts their younger counterparts to shame, where classmates who barely knew each other in school hug each other like family.

They took the road less traveled, and it has made all the difference.

"I don't know what it is that makes this class so special," says Pam Cole Glenn, head of the reunion planning committee.

The 40th reunion took place over the weekend of Aug. 7, spanning from a pizza party on Friday night to a picnic on Sunday afternoon, with hayrides and line dancing at Coyote Ranch in between. But what is especially remarkable about this class can be seen in a post-reunion meeting of the organizing committee.

Members who might have shared a few classes in high school now shriek together with laughter over common memories. Former football players mix with the alleged geeks and the beauty-school "dropouts," all united in a love for a school that closed its doors in 1981.

"The reunion is always something we look forward to, and they're all special, but this one even more so," Glenn says. "I sat back and just watched everyone hugging and loving each other."

One member of the class of 1964, Judy Walker, tried to describe this unique bond in an email to Glenn after the reunion, who in turn asked Walker to write up her thoughts in a piece that will now be used in a memory book. Walker touched upon the myriad circumstances—the radical era, the competitive nature, the sense of Sunnyvale history—that makes this class's bond all the more unlikely.

The King's Academy now sits on the former site of Sunnyvale High School on Britton Avenue, where it still has its famed "Senior Lawn" and the remnants of the old campus hangout called the Hangar.

But many of the members of the class of '64 had known each other long before their freshman year—many went to kindergarten together at McKinley Elementary.

But when that school was demolished to make way for the Sunnyvale Plaza shopping center, the students scattered to the various elementary schools in town, including Adair, Ellis, Bishop, San Miguel, Morse, Lakewood and even St. Martin's, the parochial school. While many stayed in contact through youth activities like the Sunnyvale Sparklers Majorette Corps, the rest were reacquainted under less-than-harmonious circumstances.

Students from the north side of Sunnyvale's train tracks attended Madrone Junior High School, while students from the south went to Benner, thus sparking an intense rivalry. Walker even says that students from opposing schools would throw spit wads at each other on Saturday afternoons at the Sunnyvale Theater. Those students found themselves face to face at Sunnyvale High, where tensions eventually eased. Walker, who attended Benner, even married a Madrone student—her husband of 39 years, Bill.

"We were introduced our freshman year, and I couldn't stand him," Walker says. "But then, I saw him at the skating rink with another of the girls, and I didn't like that. The green-eyed monster came out, so I made a play for him." The two hung out at the Washington Park Teen Club, and married a year after high school graduation.

Only later did they discover a number of similarities—both were confirmed in the same class at St. Martin's Catholic Church, and both had aunts who worked at the Sunnyvale Theater who would sneak them into shows.

Sunnyvale history is entwined with the lives of many in the class of '64 and even more so with their parents.

Dennis Moreno owns and operates MGM Real Estate, the Sunnyvale company that his father established decades ago. Like a number of his classmates, his relatives were native Spaniards who landed in Sunnyvale after being released from indentured servitude in the fields of Hawaii. The orchards in Sunnyvale were a big attraction for those agricultural workers.

"My mom was born in Hawaii, and her family came directly to Sunnyvale," Moreno says. "My grandfather started a grocery store, which he had until they widened Evelyn and the city bought it from him."

Moreno says that there are four people just in the reunion organizing committee who have Spanish ancestors through that same situation. He still lives in Sunnyvale, having come back to his father's real estate practice at the corner of Mathilda and W. Washington avenues after serving as president with Cornish & Casey Residential and Coldwell Banker Northern California.

The orchard connection even trickled down to the class of '64 when they were children. "Oh, I remember that I couldn't wait until I turned 13 so I could pick apricots," Glenn says. When this class was young, Sunnyvale was still a "little orchard town," according to Walker. But their high school years showed a few hints of their changing world.

"1964 was right at the beginning of the Vietnam War," says Karen Lawn Wilson, a member of the reunion committee. "We had guys who went off, and some didn't come back. There were others who didn't go in the sense that they were conscientious objectors or they defected, but that didn't matter at the reunions. It could have been like a civil war. That's what we heard about other classes."

The class of '64's tenure in high school encompassed a great many historical events—the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy among them.

Glenn remembers sitting in her senior history class when the announcement of JFK's death was made over the loudspeaker. Moreno, who was a player on the football team, said that practice was canceled despite a game scheduled for the next day. "We were one of the classes that felt that the most. We were getting ready to graduate," Lawn Wilson says.

Another incident was much more local but an example of the area's changing demographics—a brawl in the Hangar between Mexican and Caucasian students as tensions between the two groups came to a head. "I remember a trash can flying over my head," Glenn says. "It was just the straw that broke the camel's back. It was one of the first racial riots, but I don't even remember now who was involved with it. It just kind of faded into the sunset."

The memory of a different kind of brawl is instead cherished in many of these graduates' minds. Sunnyvale High's greatest rival was the Fremont Indians, who had demonstrated their superiority on the football field for many years. But on a wet November night in 1963, the Ax went back to Sunnyvale when John "the Jet" Figueroa scored the winning touchdown with four minutes left in the game. The final score was 21 to 19.

"The rain stopped just before the varsity game, so there were 3,000 people sliding through the mud when it was over," Glenn says. "When we went in as freshmen, at our first rally, one of the coaches said that we would beat Fremont during our time at that school. We did it our senior year. And my mother didn't even want me to go."

That recollection is just one of the good times in the memory bank. These alums remember dancing to the jukebox in the Hangar, cavorting in Santa Cruz without chaperones and racing "submarines" at the Stevens Creek Reservoir. The tradition continues—at the 40th reunion's opening party at Round Table Pizza, the place was packed. "We just stayed and talked, and kept ordering more pizzas," Glenn says. "It was after midnight when we had to be asked to leave."

Walker wrote for the memory book: "Each reunion has been special, but this last one, their 40th, was by far the one that seemed to bond forever this band of brothers and sisters from a bygone era."

Planning for this 40th reunion began last September. Glenn, who now lives in San Jose, began asking former classmates she saw around town if they'd be interested in serving on the committee. In fact, she initially moved to San Jose with her family during her senior year of high school, but pleaded to stay with her class. "I told my mom that I'm graduating from Sunnyvale High School," Glenn says.

Even with classmates now living as far away as Maine, a good number have stayed in the area while working in various careers. Moreno is a Realtor, Glenn graduated from beauty school but is now retired from Lockheed and others have done anything from secretarial work to serving in the military. However, one classmate, John Mercer, is a former Sunnyvale mayor who now works as a government consultant in Washington, D.C.

"Our parents only thought about high school, so they basically told us we were going to college," Glenn says. That didn't stop some from having a good time in high school—Moreno and Wilson both laugh over the improvements they made on their grade point averages between high school and college. "I went from a 1.9 to a 3.9," Wilson jokes.

While the class of '64's reunions have gone so far as to attract students who never graduated from Sunnyvale High—such as those who attended McKinley or one of the junior highs but later went on to Fremont—Glenn also notes the classmates who won't ever come back. From Vietnam to health problems to car accidents, by Glenn's count, 19 members of the class of '64 have already passed on.

Planning for the reunion got under way with locating as many members of the class as possible. "After our 20th, we started going every five years because we knew we were going to start losing people," Glenn says. For the planning committee, reminiscing about old times includes just as much discussion about previous reunions as about high school itself. Old reunion pictures are passed around, with some lamenting about the "hot hairdos" the year of their 10th reunion—and noting that some of the spouses pictured were "thens" then.

This year, the committee made the decision to try something different with a Western-themed shindig at Coyote Ranch, complete with hayrides, bonfires and tricks by a record-holding rope wrangler. "You can't please everyone, but we've all done the formal reunion in the fancy hotel," Glenn says. With the closure of their alma mater, Sunnyvale High graduates always have to hold their reunions off the school site, where they can't enjoy their old haunts. But from all accounts, this reunion was a success.

"My whole body was aching so hard from laughing so much," says Patty Wallace Philips. "We know how to have a reunion." Even spouses of the organizing committee got in on the action, earning the titles of Honorary Jet complete with a certificate from Glenn.

Of course, there were also a few missed opportunities. Lawn Wilson always spots the guy she had a crush on at these reunions and has a ritual she follows. This year, an impromptu party spoiled her plan. "Every year I give him a key to my motel room and he tells me why he can't come. This year, he came and there were 55 people in there!" she laughs.

But from the glut of thank-you notes that Glenn has on hand, it's clear everyone had a good time, including Adrian Stanga, who was principal at Sunnyvale High School between 1960 and 1966 and attended the Sunday picnic at Ponderosa Park.

"It's a joy to see them now. You remember them as your kids, but you don't hesitate to find out what they've been doing with their lives," he says. The phenomenon of this tight, closely knit class is something everyone in the class of '64 comments on, but Stanga also sees it. "This class was truly, truly outstanding—academically, athletically, citizenship-wise. It's amazing how close those kids are. This class has still got that spirit."

While many members of the Sunnyvale High School class of 1964 see each other throughout the year, thoughts are already circulating for the 45th reunion in 2009. The King's Academy has recently started renting out its student union for reunions, which other Sunnyvale High classes are taking advantage of. If the timing's right, in five years, the class of 1964 could be boogieing down again in the Hangar—or something just like it.